I don't know. The combat/leveling system and the story were what drew me to Mabinogi. I couldn't care less about Music, but it's a plus in my book. As for Final Hit/Bash ruining the game, as Kaeporo and others mentioned, I disagree. Before those, it was a windmill spam fest, or as most people will know it for: spin2win. I can't tell how many times I died due to being in deadly due to windmill spam. I, for one, am glad that stage of the game is over. At least with FH, I don't die to rats/spend all my gold in repairs.

I don't know. The combat/leveling system and the story were what drew me to Mabinogi. I couldn't care less about Music, but it's a plus in my book. As for Final Hit/Bash ruining the game, as Kaeporo and others mentioned, I disagree. Before those, it was a windmill spam fest, or as most people will know it for: spin2win. I can't tell how many times I died due to being in deadly due to windmill spam. I, for one, am glad that stage of the game is over. At least with FH, I don't die to rats/spend all my gold in repairs.

While im not one to knock on others combat choices, you do have to acknowledged why final hit and bash are toxic skills. Its because they elimate all enemy retaliation pretty hard. that means it will be hard to create challenge enemies with difficult. So i can understand why nexon creates mobs with busted stats instead. but the issue there is, most don't find mobs with walls of HP fun. just tedious but thats your only option because skills are fundamentally screwed.

With my old idea i posted awhile ago, a number of that stuff was address. From weapon and skill vareity. So it would be much easier to create a fun pv e meta with that. Without throwing 100 guys on the screen and saying GL

Originally Posted by Konrad

Keep in mind that most of broken OP skills that ignore mabi's basic combat mechanics just counter equally broken mobs who were there first. The real problems with this game lie very deep inside.

^This guy gets whats up

Last edited by Twin; 12-30-2016 at 08:07 PM.

There is nothing you could sell me, for what I already have deep inside.

The thing is, Mabi has NEVER gotten combat right. There's always been a Tier 0 busted strat. Range was Tier 0 from beta through G12, though there was a point where things was balanced, sorta. Then you had golems. Then you had max damage creep making WM incredibly efficient, coupled with the buff that removed the HP penalty. Then there was Puppetry and Gunner which dominated the meta.

But I'm not even talking about balance. I'm talking about the fact that only a small minority of the people who played this game ever seriously got into the combat aspects, and of that minority, most of the combat updates were geared towards giving the minority of that minority something to do. Thus, the massive grindsinks the game forces players into to progress past a certain point.

If we averaged each server by TTL, excepting alts and FOB new players <1 week, we'd probably come out to TTL 3-4k after almost a decade of the server being open. Most players will never complete the endgame content of 2-3 years ago, let alone today's endgame content.

The thing is, Mabi has NEVER gotten combat right. There's always been a Tier 0 busted strat. Range was Tier 0 from beta through G12, though there was a point where things was balanced, sorta. Then you had golems. Then you had max damage creep making WM incredibly efficient, coupled with the buff that removed the HP penalty. Then there was Puppetry and Gunner which dominated the meta.

But I'm not even talking about balance. I'm talking about the fact that only a small minority of the people who played this game ever seriously got into the combat aspects, and of that minority, most of the combat updates were geared towards giving the minority of that minority something to do. Thus, the massive grindsinks the game forces players into to progress past a certain point.

If we averaged each server by TTL, excepting alts and FOB new players <1 week, we'd probably come out to TTL 3-4k after almost a decade of the server being open. Most players will never complete the endgame content of 2-3 years ago, let alone today's endgame content.

I'd like to focus on your response in bold.

Mabinogi's combat is what made this game for most. When i speak among players, they often say mabi has a really original and fun combat system. And other games just doesn't compare. That is true because of the base is created.

What peoople dislike is how broken pvp is (more so in g16s2) while pre fighter iswas drastically better. despite some n1 _ ar lightning bolt meta. it also hurts that pvp has no replay content aside from duel that guy or fight with your guild in a field

What is also annoying is how pve ignores the combat system. you'll never find someoone who likes fighting mobs like that one -eyed thing from peaca int.

Originally Posted by Aubog007

It's pretty bad when most of the combat strategies then and now rely on abusing broken game mechanics and AI.

It sadly gotten worse over time. And more embarrassing. Mabinogi almst requres no skill or thought now. Just a lot of damage / money

There is nothing you could sell me, for what I already have deep inside.

You know. I read the title of this thread, and came in here expecting to hate everything you were saying (Koishi). And although I do think you're sort of just putting numbers out there, wow, you have gotten me convinced.

I have played Mabinogi since open beta with two long hiatuses, and all throughout that time I have not enjoyed combat at all expect briefly when Merlins came out because I could actually combo two unrelated skillsets together. But even my joy from that died out. Thinking back, the things that kept bringing me back to Mabinogi had nothing or little to do with combat.

Sure there was in part the rebirth system, letting me progress my character without grinding. This gave a sense of progression and a sort of instant gratification but when you think about it, for me anyways, the reason why I like this system as opposed to what other games have is because you don't have to grind. You can just do casual gameplay, be patient, and continue to play how you play and overtime get what you want a LOT faster than a game like MapleStory for example, which has you grinding for hours on end to make very little progress in your character's development. My conclusion is the reason I like the rebirth system is because it allows me to progress and actually see my progression, without having to grind, or in other words, without having to spend time doing hours of combat.

What avenues of content had me returning? When I think about it, Story, my guild and ingame friends, Homestead and updates to it, music, doki doki island, the halloween events. And guess what? I was bringing my money with me. It actually managed to convinced me to spend money on things that don't bring me back but are still there, like combat and fashion. (I'm including pets in that category since they're mostly just combat incentives and cosmetics.)

You know what has made me quit mabinogi before? The inventory system. I have multiple times in the past felt nostalgic, logged into the game, taken a look at my inventory, and just logged back out. You know what has made me quit mabinogi before? Skill training. I see where I want to be and spend 5+ hours a day working at it and for what? To make it a third of the way from rank 6 to rank 5?

What do these have in common? They're overwhelming and it's hard to see any sort of progress in them. I could spend weeks grinding on a skill, grinding only makes me more fatigued for the game, not more enthusiastic. I could throw my money and I buy pets to shoo my inventory problems away, that's an instantaneous solution. I'm only delaying the inevitable.

You know what brought me back to mabinogi? G15. Why G15? G15 made a bunch of items stack and introduced the special inventory tab. Suddenly my inventory which was filled with mostly items from storylines that I can't drop felt a little bit less daunting.

You know what COULD bring me back? A skill training overhaul. Yes yes, there are multiple avenues to train your skills and you don't have to do just one thing, but that's meaningless when you have to do 8 out of 10 of them to rank your skill. And they're all mostly the same thing. Attack an enemy. Knock down an enemy. Kill an enemy. Knock down a strong enemy. Kill an awful enemy. Spend days searching for CP gear so you actually can spend half an hour figuring out where to find an awful enemy to kill cuz everything is strong or boss and the skill you've been finally making progress on is suddenly halted. And then spend several hours grinding there once you have found it.

I was gonna write more about how I don't see how PvP is even on the board at all but I think I got across my point. The things that bring me back to mabinogi are almost never combat related. It's those things that make me notice mabinogi as opposed to more combat based MMOs, and I really don't think it's in DevCAT's best interest to try and compete with those MMOs.

You know. I read the title of this thread, and came in here expecting to hate everything you were saying (Koishi). And although I do think you're sort of just putting numbers out there, wow, you have gotten me convinced.

Thank you, and yeah I wasn't looking to make a super precise argument. This is basically based on what I've seen dealing with a pretty big cross-ection of players on Alexina.

I have played Mabinogi since open beta with two long hiatuses, and all throughout that time I have not enjoyed combat at all expect briefly when Merlins came out because I could actually combo two unrelated skillsets together. But even my joy from that died out. Thinking back, the things that kept bringing me back to Mabinogi had nothing or little to do with combat.

And I think that's the same for many if not MOST players. While I'm definitely a combat focused player, I am a distinct minority. Most players, even high level players, often either don't have any knowledge of build/gear/stat optimization, or have no interest. The only reason I encourage people to get into it because most new content is GATED by this optimization, which only a small minority is interested in pursuing. Guys like Twin and Kaeporo are a MINORITY. Hell, this site is a minority; the average TTL is something like 8k here, and that's with a lot of people who quit 2-3 years ago post 10k.

Sure there was in part the rebirth system, letting me progress my character without grinding. This gave a sense of progression and a sort of instant gratification but when you think about it, for me anyways, the reason why I like this system as opposed to what other games have is because you don't have to grind. You can just do casual gameplay, be patient, and continue to play how you play and overtime get what you want a LOT faster than a game like MapleStory for example, which has you grinding for hours on end to make very little progress in your character's development. My conclusion is the reason I like the rebirth system is because it allows me to progress and actually see my progression, without having to grind, or in other words, without having to spend time doing hours of combat.

The RB system is great. The main issue is they coupled it with the skill training system. It should be one or the other.

What avenues of content had me returning? When I think about it, Story, my guild and ingame friends, Homestead and updates to it, music, doki doki island, the halloween events. And guess what? I was bringing my money with me. It actually managed to convinced me to spend money on things that don't bring me back but are still there, like combat and fashion. (I'm including pets in that category since they're mostly just combat incentives and cosmetics.)

Most of the people who quit are not quitting because the combat is boring or frustrating, because they weren't into the combat beyond a casual level to begin with. They're quitting because there's nothing fun to do beyond just grinding skills and getting gear. Or the community goes into the shitter. But here's the thing, almost EVERY game has a shitty community. You don't see League bleeding players despite you get your game ruined by an asshole 10-20% of the time. And in League, you can't avoid the shitty community the way you can in a MMO.

You know what has made me quit mabinogi before? The inventory system. I have multiple times in the past felt nostalgic, logged into the game, taken a look at my inventory, and just logged back out. You know what has made me quit mabinogi before? Skill training. I see where I want to be and spend 5+ hours a day working at it and for what? To make it a third of the way from rank 6 to rank 5?

Interestingly, a lot of the same casual players that quit Mabi at like 2k or under TTL suddenly hop on BDO or FFXIV and cap with quality gear. So it's not an issue of laziness, it's to me there's something wrong with Mabi's combat systems that prevent it from having mass appeal. I think the overwhelming nature of skill training is part of it (I'd also throw in enchanting and special upgrading; imo reforges are the best instance of gear progression Mabi's had, except for the cash shop reliance, but nobody ever cries about enchants despite being even more cash shop reliant). The inventory system sucks as well.

One more thing I'd add is that the meta is really restrictive. You basically HAVE to build your char a certain way or you're basically doing it wrong. I have to tell so many new players, no you're wasting your time rushing Fighter or Alchemy or Gunner, no, sword and board is bad, and because of how broken the skill and stat system is, and how overloaded certain skills are, and how so much content is geared towards certain skillsets being super efficient, there's actually not as much skill freedom as you would think, at least until you have your core set.

You know what COULD bring me back? A skill training overhaul. Yes yes, there are multiple avenues to train your skills and you don't have to do just one thing, but that's meaningless when you have to do 8 out of 10 of them to rank your skill. And they're all mostly the same thing. Attack an enemy. Knock down an enemy. Kill an enemy. Knock down a strong enemy. Kill an awful enemy. Spend days searching for CP gear so you actually can spend half an hour figuring out where to find an awful enemy to kill cuz everything is strong or boss and the skill you've been finally making progress on is suddenly halted. And then spend several hours grinding there once you have found it.

Only thing I can add is that they removed CP based training for newer skills - but made them RIDICULOUSLY grindy to train. Gotta love it.

The things that bring me back to mabinogi are almost never combat related.

I think Mabi's staying power comes from the fact that it's still very party and community based compared to newer MMOs (Mabi is actually very old school in that you really do need other people to progress), it's fashion diversity (no game comes close, period), the kawaii aspect (not a lot of games really hit this nowadays), and a sort of sunk cost element where you spend so time on it you're loath to give it up.